Originally Posted by
jamar
There's the possibility that they thought JR East was enough to start, given it covers roughly half of Honshu... right? I thought JR East was responsible for Tokyo, the surroundings, and everything north of it and south of Hokkaido.
In terms of geographic area, about a third or so - Chubu and Kansai (and Chugoku and Hokuriku) are different companies. Even for people living in Kanto, the fact that you can't get a train pass on (most, I assume - it is that way in Kansai) non-JR lines is a huge minus. You can use it on non-JR lines, but if your train pass isn't on JR East it is a huge minus.